STPitt
Forum Enthusiast
I want to use RAW more but my 2GB cards don't cut it. I see CF cards with 12 & 16 GB. How large a CF card can I use with my trusty old *istD?
Steve-Seattle
Steve-Seattle
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CF card size & *istD
- Thread starter STPitt
- Start date
LKeithR
Senior Member
Why do you have an issue with 2 Gig cards? I use them all the time with my K20. I wouldn't want to lose a lot of images if a card went bad so I've stayed away from the really large cards. I do use 4 Gig, however.
I'm not familiar with the *istD but I thought all Pentax cameras used SD cards, not CF...
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Look at the picture, not the pixels...
http://www.lkeithr.zenfolio.com
I'm not familiar with the *istD but I thought all Pentax cameras used SD cards, not CF...
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Look at the picture, not the pixels...
http://www.lkeithr.zenfolio.com
Roland Mabo
Forum Pro
The *ist D was the first DSLR from Pentax, and this one do uses CF cards.
After this model, Pentax went to SD cards in all their DSLR's.
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Take care
R
http://www.flickr.com/photos/raphaelmabo
After this model, Pentax went to SD cards in all their DSLR's.
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Take care
R
http://www.flickr.com/photos/raphaelmabo
Charles Self
Senior Member
I used 4GB in mine. The raw files are larger than the K10D raw files, so that's handy. At this remove, I can no longer recall whether I used 8GB or not, but I don't think so, because cards hadn't come down near their present prices then.
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Charlie Self
http://www.charlieselfonline.com
I have never found any official data on CF card size limits. I suspect it is higher than I would want to pay for though, probably 32Gb.
I use a couple of Lexar Premium Series 80X 8Gb cards in my *istD without any problems. Startup time is a couple of seconds longer than my Sandisk Extreme III 2Gb cards so I choose which card to use according to the subject. I suspect that the bigger the card the longer the startup time will be. Anybody out there with a bigger card care to test?
The *istD doesn't have a high write speed so won't see any performance increase through higher speed cards, this only benefits read speed through a card reader when uploading to the pc.
I went for the Lexar 8Gb card mainly on price and brand. These cards can be had for £21 in the UK. I get 553 RAW shots per card.
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Steve
http://www.pbase.com/steephill
I use a couple of Lexar Premium Series 80X 8Gb cards in my *istD without any problems. Startup time is a couple of seconds longer than my Sandisk Extreme III 2Gb cards so I choose which card to use according to the subject. I suspect that the bigger the card the longer the startup time will be. Anybody out there with a bigger card care to test?
The *istD doesn't have a high write speed so won't see any performance increase through higher speed cards, this only benefits read speed through a card reader when uploading to the pc.
I went for the Lexar 8Gb card mainly on price and brand. These cards can be had for £21 in the UK. I get 553 RAW shots per card.
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Steve
http://www.pbase.com/steephill
GaryDeM
Veteran Member
i have the *istD and use 4gb microdrives all the time. also 1gb 2gb 4gb and 8gb CF cards. no problems at all. have used 1gb and 2gb microdrives as well.
STPitt
Forum Enthusiast
I love and use my 2GB cards all the time when I am saving as jpeg. But when I use RAW, they only hold around 140 photos and that comes quick. I hate having to stop and change cards.
Roland's right about the *istD being the only Pentax DSLR to use CF cards. It's been around a while, I've had mine since 2003 so it's really old in digital time, but so am I.
Thanks for the input.
Steve-Seattle
MrMyrasDad
Member
Related question; I'll tack it onto this old thread to keep all the info together.
Does anyone know what the max write speed is on the *istD? CF card technology has come a long way in the last few years, but I don't want to pay for faster CF cards than the camera can effectively use.
The SanDisk Extreme III's advertise 30MB/s Extreme IV's are 45MB/s! However, I'm guessing that my elderly *istD can't keep up.
Can it do 20MB/s? 15MB/s?
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Does anyone know what the max write speed is on the *istD? CF card technology has come a long way in the last few years, but I don't want to pay for faster CF cards than the camera can effectively use.
The SanDisk Extreme III's advertise 30MB/s Extreme IV's are 45MB/s! However, I'm guessing that my elderly *istD can't keep up.
Can it do 20MB/s? 15MB/s?
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- Rich Stevens
Charles Self
Senior Member
The *istD was Pentax's first DSLR; it uses compact flash; it also has raw files that are about 20% larger than those later in the D cameras. When I had my *istD bodies, I used an 8 GB CF card (loaner) with no problem, but mostly used 4 gigs.
As an incidental point, the *istD has a slow enough write to card time that it's basically a waste of money to get high speed cards.
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Charlie Self
http://www.charlieselfonline.com
Charles Self
Senior Member
No. I answered above thinking this was a new thread, but...the *istD has a slow write to card time. Don't waste money on high speed cards, as they don't change a thing. That's the voice of experience. I jumped on a couple of fast two gig cards early on, and found no difference from ye olde basic cards.
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Charlie Self
http://www.charlieselfonline.com
MrMyrasDad
Member
Do you mean, no, it can't even go 15MB/s? It seems, normal, run-of-the-mill (i.e. Walmart) CF cards are 12 or 15 MB/s these days? Are even relative slowpokes those faster than I need? Can I simply look for rock-bottom deals on older, slower cards, and not suffer speed-wise?
Bargain-bin CF has some appeal to me... with a 14-year-old DSLR novice in the house, it's better to have a bunch of cheap cards around than a few expensive ones. Raises our chances of being able to find a card when we need one.
Is it possible to go too** slow when shopping for CF for a *istD?
John Shakespeare
Forum Enthusiast
The *istD goes pretty slow on write to CF. According to the review at http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/PentaxIstD/page9.asp it managed about 1½MB/sec, or about 8 sec per RAW file. The buffer holds about 3 raw files. Both the write speed and the buffer size are real issues with the *istD. I still have mine, and can assure you that there is little difference in speed between SanDisk Extreme III and SanDisk blue (cheapest) CF cards.
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Horses are good subjects for photography, but terrible platforms for a photographer.
GaryDeM
Veteran Member
for the *istD, this website in their dslr test of the *istD in showing a max write speed of 1.5mb/sec. or 1500kb/sec. so 1500/150=10X. any card that is 10x or faster will take the max speed the camera can write. this is any cf card from sandisk from the standard card on up.
i have the *istD as well. i am using microdrives(1,2, and 4gb sizes) and/or standard cf cards from sandisk. the cards i have used are the 1,2,4, and 8gb sizes. all work fine.
i have the *istD as well. i am using microdrives(1,2, and 4gb sizes) and/or standard cf cards from sandisk. the cards i have used are the 1,2,4, and 8gb sizes. all work fine.
MrMyrasDad
Member
Cool. I found some older Kingston 2GB 33x cards online for $11, 4GB 50x for $20. Cheap memory - me likes.
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- Rich Stevens
Charles Self
Senior Member
I haven't checked in the past year or so--I've got K10D bodies now--but I somehow think that regular, non-turbo, whatever, CF cards are low enough in price that I'd not worry overmuch about cost. I almost literally gave away the CF cards I had when I sold my *istD bodies.
I just checked: Newegg.com has 4GB Kingston cards with plenty of speed for the *istD at $18.50 plus seven bucks shipping. Faster Transcend 4 gig cards are about three bucks higher.
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Charlie Self
http://www.charlieselfonline.com
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